WAR - FACTS AND FIGURES

Fact

Comment

The Second World war left some fifty million dead, most of them innocent civilians.T.V. Prog - World War II, The Apocalypse - Nat Geo (Feb 2012).

This is what can happen when one man and a few of his cronies are allowed to get away with it, herding others into the equation. No war can be fought without the support of others and Hitler could have done nothing by himself.

What a lot of money this is! What else could have been done with it if it had been used in a more constructive fashion? People are having to live on the streets in tents and in cars in America. Priorities right? What do you think?

The recent Iraq war has cost America the lives of four and half thousand of its citizens.T.V. Programme - Newsnight - BBC2 (Dec 2011).

The misery and pain to those left behind as well as the loss to those that have given their lives. Who can feel they are justified in squandering so many lives for so little? Perhaps it's easy when it's other people's lives!

The recent Iraq war has cost the Iraqis an estimated 150,000 lives of its own people.T.V. Programme - Newsnight - BBC2 (Dec 2011).

The number of coalition lives lost, mainly soldiers (who chose to join a potential fighting force), was fractional compared to the number of Iraqi lives lost. Many of which were actually woman and children.

Nearly a million children have lost one or both parents as a result of the recent Iraq warT.V. Programme - Did My Son Die In Vain? - BBC2 (Mar 2013).

Isn't it always the innocent that suffer the most in war? Do we really need to be behaving as such, spending so much we can all ill afford, causing so much heartache and wrecking the lives of innocents this day and age?

While America spends so much money on war, thousands of its own people are homeless.T.V. Programme - Tonight - ITV1 (Dec 2011).

Many are living in their cars, one family of five featured on this programme were actually living and sleeping in their car as they had nowhere else. Is this a responsible use of a nation's resources while its own people are so desperate?

IED's, or Improvised Explosive Devices, blow people to pieces, or simply blow their arms and legs off. They either kill, or seriously maim their victims. As well as innocent adults, many children are amongst the casualties.

The US has spent over 500 billion dollars on the war in Afghanistan.T.V. Programme - The Hunt for Bin Laden - ITV1 (May 2012).

What is total cost of war to the human race? That is before we start to count the number of lives and the amount of suffering invloved. Are the people of this planet really happy to just carry on like this?

Making enemies can be expensive. You can never protect yourself against all eventualities. Inspiring others to dedicate their lives to finding ways of hurting you is not very clever. It's much safer and significantly cheaper to all be friends!

Over 100,000 western soldiers are currently stationed in Afghanistan.T.V. Prog - Afghanistan: The Great Game - BBC2 (May 2012).

MP, Rory Stewart's personal view on Afghanistan sums things up very well . "One of the most isolated, barren landscapes on Earth" "The Graveyard of Empires." "A land where soliders go to die." Haven't we got better things to do?

The war in Afghanistan is costing 130 billion dollars a year.T.V. Prog - Afghanistan: The Great Game - BBC2 (May 2012).

The corrupt and perverse powers-that-be seem happy to fritter away resources on death and destruction whilst their own people are without homes and hungry. After all, they're not short of money. They don't have to lay down their own lives.

Since the Vietnam war ended, 20,000 people in Laos have been killed by unexploded bombs.T.V. Prog - World's Most Dangerous Roads - BBC2 (July 2012).

The legacy of war goes on and on for some in the world for many years after it has finished while those who started it are comfortably away from the scene of devastation or have died and gone to their maker long before.

So many casualties in war, and after it, are children. Leftover unexploded bombs and land mines mainly target children, as children are the ones that want to play and explore and so inadvertantly come across what remains of the conflict.